I like to think that when it comes to matters of cinematic comedy that my taste is broad and all-encompassing–I can laugh out loud at both the erudite wit of the Ealing Studios catalogue and the knockabout silliness of the Three Stooges. Even gross-out comedy can be amusing when done properly–just a few hours before writing this review, I watched and was amused by a film in which the last third of the running time revolved around the performance of a donkey act of the type that wouldn’t be seen in a Francis the Talking Mule movie. And yet, when it comes to “Nacho Libre,” I am simply at a loss for words. With most failed comedies, I can at least understand why someone might have found the material funny at some point–even the notion of Rob Schneider as an incompetent gigolo has a glimmer of promise to it–but with this film, I was so alienated from the proceedings that I couldn’t begin to understand what exactly it was that I was supposed to be finding funny at any given point. Watching it, I was reminded of that astounding scene in Albert Brooks’s “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World” in which he arrogantly performed a comedy routine that few people in his India-based audience could have possibly understood in the first place because the jokes, such as a bit about Halloween, involved subjects of which they had no working knowledge or concept–the difference, of course, being that it was far more entertaining to watch that audience than to be a member of it.

Jack Black, that most irrepressible of performers, stars as Nacho (short for Ignacio), a good-hearted Mexican who works as a cook in the remote monastery/orphanage where he has lived since he was a child. However, ever since he was a child, Nacho has dreamed of achieving fortune and glory by becoming a wrestler. Partly to raise money for the children of the orphanage and partly to win the love of the sweet Sister Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera), apparently a new arrival from the Immaculate Sisterhood of the Winona Ryder convent nearby, Nacho acquires a sidekick, street thief Esqueleto (Hector Jimenez) and an outlandish costume–complete with mask and “stretchy pants”–and, after a suitably wacky training montage, the two step into the ring and are promptly stomped. However, they are still paid for their troubles and decide to return week after week to keep fighting while Nacho tries to keep his double life a secret from the others at the monastery. Eventually, he lucks into a final brawl with the top Luchadore, the nasty Ramses (Cesar Gonzalez), and the film concludes with a match so gripping that I cannot recall a single detail about it even though it has only been a couple of hours since I left the theater.

Since there is hardly enough material here to fill up an average “SNL” sketch, “Nacho Libre” quickly degenerates into a series of scenes in which Jack Black, utilizing an accent that is pure Speedy Gonzales and an ill-fitting costume, gets smacked around in a wrestling ring by a series of increasingly goofy-looking competitors. Beyond that, there is no story to speak of–the film shambles on from event to event in such a haphazard manner that it feels at times like a rough assembly of footage rather than a finished film–and the jokes are virtually nonexistent. This is the kind of film that just assumes that the sight of something like a gauche polyester shirt or an ear of corn slathered in mayo is so inherently amusing that an extended close-up of them is comic gold all by itself. Of course, these items can theoretically be the inspiration for great comedy but that also requires someone to take those elements and make something of them, a step that no one involved with “Nacho Libre” seems to have bothered to tackle.

Amazingly, “Nacho Libre” even manages to squander its chief asset–the considerable presence of Jack Black. Although he has the persona of a wild man, his best performances (those would be “High Fidelity” and “School of Rock”) have been in films in which the directors figured out a way to channel his volcanic energy into a fully-formed character. Here, Black is pretty much allowed to run riot over the proceedings and while he somehow manages to remain relatively likable throughout, he quickly wears out his welcome with his incessant mugging, screaming and brutal pratfalls. In addition, he gets no fewer than three chances to break out into songs in the style of his work as one-half of Tenacious D–the tunes are amusing enough but those scenes are all about Black playing to the rafters at the expense of maintaining a consistent character.

“Nacho Libre” was directed by Jared Hess, whose previous work was the fluke hit “Napoleon Dynamite.” While plenty of people loved that film, I found it to be a smug, condescending and supremely unfunny stab at sub-Wes Anderson whimsy and his work here is just more of the same. Many of the scenes, in fact, feel like rehashes of the stuff he did in that earlier film–Nacho’s sidekick is basically a retread of Pedro and Nacho’s awkward romance with Encarnacion (“Would you like to come to my quarters for toast?”) mirrors the numerous tentative flirtations–and while you could almost excuse it then as first-time jitters, it just comes off as sheer laziness here. As far as I can see, Hess has yet to demonstrate any discernible sense of genuine comic style or timing–some scenes (such as a pointless party sequence) go on forever without a single honest laugh while others (especially a brief appearance from Peter Stormare as a goofy guru) start promisingly and then go nowhere. Hess can’t even get a laugh out of the sight of Luchadores talking shop while decked out in business attire and wrestling masks, a seemingly foolproof comedic sight that he renders as drably grotesque as everything else.

Of course, and this is where the confusion I mentioned in the first paragraph comes in, millions of people loved “Napoleon Dynamite” and I have to admit that the audience that I saw “Nacho Libre” with seemed to be laughing heartily throughout while I sat there trying in vain to see what it was that they were seeing. (It can’t just be the sight of a chunky gringo in tights smacking people and getting smacked, can it?) Clearly there is something about Hess and his brand of comedy that is reaching out to people and I presume that those on that particular wavelength will find this effort as amusing as his last one. For the rest of us, “Nacho Libre” is slightly less amusing than being put in an especially sweaty headlock for 90 straight minutes.